YOU become the hero …
Review and Opinion
When I first saw the name Luke Sharp, I groaned out loud and rolled my eyes. That’s the same guy who did Chasms of Malice, which was among the worst FF experiences I’ve had yet. But I was wrong – Fangs of Fury is actually pretty decent!
There’s a lot in here! There are a lot of paths that take some time to converge (and some that wind you back up n the same place) and they cover a lot of area. The areas aren’t that diverse (beach, tunnel, other tunnel, forest, tunnel) but re-playing and mapping took days!
There are also some jokes here and there if you look. Old Peg Leg pulls what seems to be the Jedi mind trick on some guards, which gave me a chuckle. There’s a giant yelling Fee Fi Fo Fum. I like it. The writing is a little stilted in places, but pretty decent, full of surprises and easy-to-miss story lines.
As to mechanics, there is some time pressure. There are 14 walls. When they all fall you’ll keel over dead. And they fall at seemingly arbitrary times throughout your adventure. That sort of mechanic isn’t new, but it adds a little bit of pressure and discourages arbitrary exploration if you expect to win, and I enjoy books that have that.
Also mechanics, the white cube mechanic was entirely novel to me. If you meet a monk, it unlocks a mini-game of looking at the book’s internal illustrations to find White Cubes, and these white cubes will simplify the trials you must survive once you get into the Fangs of Fury. It took me multiple playthroughs to even discover this mini-game, and it added an extra level of interest to the internal artwork.
So, I’m sorry Luke Sharp that when I first picked this up I expected it to be awful. It was quite fun and very long and interesting, and it kept me busy for days.
Errors
The final puzzle on 381 says you can use the key or lockpick to solve the puzzle. However, the only key I found is on 162, and it does not have a number on it, nor any other function at all, as far as I can tell. As such, the lockpick is how you need to solve the puzzle.
When you take the correct left-hand tunnel at the very beginning, you take a minimum of 8 points of damage. That stinks.
Maps
Publication
Written by Luke Sharp
Illustrated by David Gallagher
1989
Book 39 in the series
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